


Ghost of the Sun

by DoorKeeper9



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst and Feels, Canon Compliant, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Force Bond (Star Wars), Force Visions, Movie: Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, One Shot, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Trailer, The Force Ships It
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-19
Updated: 2019-04-19
Packaged: 2020-01-16 17:44:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18526465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoorKeeper9/pseuds/DoorKeeper9
Summary: Despite the sheer scale of the desert, when Rey reached for the Force she felt only one network: her, connected to him. Nothing else. She felt the sun, hard. She reached for calm, hard. With effort, the foreign sand under her feet seemed to welcome her, pulsing slightly beneath her as though part of her blood.Maybe it was. Maybe this place was just them. Their minds. Their battlefield.





	Ghost of the Sun

**Author's Note:**

> The teaser trailer for TROS made my heart soar and my fingers start typing away at my first fic. I'm suspicious that they'd show us Rey's lightsaber being fixed from the get-go, so my theory is the desert scene could be a force vision...which of course means angst for Reylo.

Rey came to herself suddenly. The sun beat down on her, a deep baking heat that made her skin warm and loosen. The air was dry, covering her exposed flesh like shimmering cloth. Her eyes opened and she saw a vast plain of yellow desert surrounding her– not Jakku, she knew instantly, instinctively. It felt angular, strange. Hadn’t she been somewhere else? 

Hadn’t she just been– her heartbeat spiked. She gasped, kept gasping as the shock kicked in. Her clothes were white, bright enough to hurt her eyes. Unfamiliar. Dark cliffs dotted the horizon and deep in her gut she could feel the starting hum of an engine, coming closer. The static was part of a force signature she recognized all too well; it had lived in her gut for over a year. **  
**

_Ben._

Rey tried and failed to place herself, to reconcile the ominous crackle of him and the alien sun above. For a single frantic breath the sky seemed to flutter with darkness. Was the hum getting closer? She didn’t know if she was ready, already. This close after only a year. Rey felt his sharp spikes of energy flaring, manifesting as the dagger sharp points of his TIE fighter wings.

_Don’t think of him, now._

Despite the sheer scale of the desert, when Rey reached for the Force she felt only one network: her, connected to him. Nothing else. She felt the sun, hard. She reached for calm, hard. With effort, the foreign sand under her feet seemed to welcome her, pulsing slightly beneath her as though part of her blood.

Maybe it was. Maybe this place was just them. Their minds. Their battlefield.

Rey’s breathing evened, like it had long ago in a dark hall of mirrors. This place was real and it wasn’t. She was elsewhere and she wasn’t. But if she was here, in this dream world, then she could be strong. Rey, of Jakku, of no one, was strong. Maybe stronger than him.

With one motion Rey reached for her belt and pulled loose Luke’s lightsaber. In this dry amphitheater it was whole, like new, like the time she’d pulled it out on Ahch-To to spar against rocks. It felt right in her hand, and the more she aligned with its steady glow, the less she cared about the approaching TIE fighter. She watched him come.

She even turned. With her back facing the ship, Rey clearly felt indignation emitting in blasts from the cockpit. Ben’s darkness beat against her like the sun on the sand, amplified in this place. She absorbed it, acknowledged it, and, looking over her shoulder, began to run.

_No,_  she felt shudder through her, like he’d shouted.  _Not again._

Black gloves tightened on the controls of the ship as her hands tightened on the lightsaber. Rey ran lighter and faster than she ever had on Jakku, but his hate was strong and he threw himself at her.  _Water,_  she thought, in the midst of the desert. Her limbs bunched and started to twist of their own will, launching her backwards in a graceful stream.

_Water,_  she thought, as the black and red metal screamed towards her and she fluidly leapt onto its back. _He_ was down there inside it.

_No!_  he screamed, and he was there in front of her, somehow, tight grip crushing her forearms, while he also sped in his fighter beneath the hot sun. She held on. The fighter careened from one side to the other, trying to shake her. Rey’s eyes closed again, she felt herself there on the top, bright metal hot through her boots and his tight black gloves clenching within.

_Ben,_  she choked out into cooler air. Ship’s air. She could feel his rage, his frantic dismissal. He wanted to kill her. Because he was afraid.

_I will not kill you,_ Rey whispered, and plunged her saber into the ship’s engine, the hot desert sun blazing down as the TIE fighter swerved low and crashed. Yellow sand flew up in plumes. He screamed. She rolled.

She fell to the floor, Ben’s weight pulling her down. The ship. Their real fight. The bond had lit up like a fiery sun and– no– the desert was gone. He was gasping. Her breathing was even and cool. She focused her eyes on his flushed face and mussed hair, the whites in his eyes showing around the chocolatey iris. He was bare-handed here, that’s what had set it all off, when she’d reached out and grabbed his hand. She’d surprised him by appearing at the heart of his Order, physically  _there_  for a moment. Now  _there_  again.

_I want to kill you,_  he sobbed.

_But you didn’t fire,_  Rey said. She reached up and cupped his hot cheek. Ben’s bedchamber was dark and cold, their joined souls at night.  _You didn’t fire at me, not once._

He said nothing. His breathing was staggered, his hands trembled where they still gripped her arms. She let him. She looked up at him, feeling cool blue, like the lightsaber. Like bright desert sky. His breathing slowed.

_You won’t kill me,_  she said.

_Not that way._

And she vanished, a ghost of the sun.


End file.
